"Are you sure you want ALL of these?" Sirius asked as he glanced through the pages of an old tome, which depicted intricate ways to flay a person while using magic to keep them alive longer, allowing the torturer more time to question them. Or to enjoy themselves longer.
"Yes, all of them." Harry answered as he skimmed through the titles of the different books that were on the shelves, most of which appeared to be tomes of dark and foul magics, while a few were even cursed.
The two of them were currently looking through the Black family library as part of their endeavors to clean Sirius's childhood home, Grimmauld Place, with Harry readily taking mostly anything Sirius didn't want to keep. Which was actually a lot since, if he had his way, Sirius would rather just torch the entire place and be done with it forever.
But Harry, having spent the majority of his life crawling through various dungeons searching for treasure, was not so hasty. He had learned long ago that even the darkest skills and magics had their uses, such as Necromancy. Harry might personally dislike Necromancy, but he could still be counted amongst the best(mortal) necromancers in Tamriel because it was still a useful tool to have in his arsenal. However, he still didn't hold a candle to Serana.
Harry was approaching the Black family collection with the same mindset as he readily collected any number of artifacts and tomes from their home to add to his personal collection. Though some things they did throw out, like a grandfather clock that shot bolts at people passing it, a pair of tweezers that came alive and tried to draw blood, and a set of robes that tried to strangle whoever removed them from their wardrobe.
Items that Harry kept though included things like a music box that put those around it to sleep, a locket none of them could open, and a few different sets of enchanted ritual daggers. Harry was interested in the music box as he contemplated scaling it up using Dwemer technology, which he was intimately familiar with after his years of exploring Dwemer ruins, while the locket drew his interest when they realized they could feel some kind of heartbeat coming from it. They might not be able to open it here, but Harry had a forge complete with tools made from Ebony and Daedric hearts that said otherwise.
For the next hour Harry and Sirius combed the library as they cleared the shelves and packed away everything Harry wanted to keep, which he would add to his own growing library back at Potter manor. They were about to finish when a commotion drew their attention elsewhere in the house.
"The kids!" Sirius exclaimed as he and Harry both darted from the room quickly to investigate the noise, which was assuredly coming from the second group that was cleaning the house.
"Look out!" They heard Susan cry as they arrived at the room the noise was coming from, just in time to see a creature lunge at Remus with a savage snarl.
The creature was lanky, with distinctive canine features while coarse fur sparsely covered its body.
"Riddikulus!" Remus however calmly spelled the creature before it could reach him, and it suddenly shifted as it turned into a clown standing upon stilts so tall that its head hit the ceiling.
"HAHA!" Remus loudly laughed at the clown, and it practically exploded in place without leaving a single trace of its existence.
"What was that?" Harry asked while going to check on Susan.
"A Boggart." Remus said while sheathing his wand. "Nasty little things. They take the form of whatever we fear the most, weaponizing our own fears against us. The only way to truly finish them off is laughter, to take away their fear."
"Uh huh. And your fear was...?"
"That was what I looked like before when I transformed, during the full moon. My fear used to be the full moon itself, but I guess it changed after you gave me your blood. Now my fear appears to be going back to being that particular monster." He explained while carefully checking to make sure there was nothing else overly dangerous in the room.
"So THAT is what passes for a werewolf in this world?" Harry asked incredulously, having not seen it before now.
"Unfortunately." Remus said sadly as he and Sirius both continued checking the room.
"Are you sure you're ok?" Harry asked while turning his attention to Susan, who was helping them out while her aunt was working at the Ministry.
"I'm fine." She said while dusting off her robes, before declaring proudly, "I'm built Hufflepuff tough, remember!"
Harry smiled wryly at her bravado, recalling both some of his own children back in Skyrim, and several of her housemates back at Hogwarts.
"Badgers are a lot more resilient and vicious than people give them credit for." He said in agreement, making Susan smile at the compliment. But then he glanced around curiously.
"By the way, where's Draco?"
The words were barely out of Harry's mouth when a scream tore through the air.
"Dumbass!" Harry swore as he took off once again, this time with both Remus and Sirius right behind him as they all entered another room to find Draco in the middle of a swarm of Cornish Pixies.
"Help me!" He wailed as the pixies attacked him, biting and scratching any patch of exposed skin that they could find.
"Immobulus!" Harry cried this time as he brandished his wand, putting enough power into the spell to effect every single pixie in the room. As a result, they all became still in whatever pose they held at that particular moment, even slowly floating through the air as gravity seemingly held no effect on them.
"Nicely done." Remus said as they stepped forward to help Draco.
"Give him this." Harry said while offering Remus a bottle of potion from his bag, a potion of cure poison since pixie teeth were slightly toxic. They weren't a threat if just bitten once, but with as many bites as Draco had it was better to be safe.
Then Harry pulled out a staff that he handed to Susan, one specifically enchanted for Restoration magic.
"Heal his wounds for him." Harry told her seriously, to which Susan appeared hesitant.
"We can't use magic outside school though..." She insisted worriedly.
"This is a completely different form of magic though, quite possibly untraceable by the Ministry. If you do get in trouble though, then I'll take responsibility." Harry assured her, though Susan still appeared hesitant.
Eventually, thanks to Draco's whimpering, she finally waved the staff and produced a soft golden glow of magic that enveloped him, healing his wounds at a visible rate. At the same time, Harry began collecting Pixies and stuffing them into a sack for later. He wanted to test their usefulness for Alchemy.
By the time Harry had collected every single Pixie and stuffed them into the sack, which was full to nearly bursting, Draco was completely healed as he stopped whimpering and crying.
"Alright Draco. You're good, so get up." Harry said as he grabbed the boy by his arm and lifted him to a standing position.
"Get your hands off me!" Draco snarled as he tried to pull away from him. He was obviously trying to look tough, but it was ruined by his tears still streaked across his face.
"Why did you go off on your own in here?" Harry demanded irritably as Draco backed away from him.
"I'm not a servant!" Draco sneered with disdain while looking at each of them in order, even Sirius and Remus.
"No one said you were." Harry said with an annoyed tone. "But there is no reason for you not to help us since this will probably be your new home once it's cleaned up. One would think you would want to get it done faster so you can stop having to stay in my house."
"Well then hurry up and do your job already." Draco snarled venomously, and Harry cocked a brow.
"Dobby." Harry called out into thin air, before he was answered by a loud crack.
"Master calls for Dobby?" The house elf replied as he appeared.
Narcissa had transferred ownership of the elf to Harry the day after they moved in, and he was ecstatic with the change after the way the Malfoy's treated him. Now his filthy pillowcase was traded for a clean toga, which was embroidered with the Potter family crest, and the elf acted like a completely different person. Harry was also grateful for his new elf since it saved him from having to buy a new one to start learning under Goggles, and Dobby was more than happy to start learning the administrative duties the elderly elf usually took care of, alongside his regular duties.
"Yes Dobby. I want you to take Draco back to the manor, and have him help Stumpy with shoveling the animal pens. By hand." Harry ordered the elf, whose eyes widened comically as he looked between the two boys.
"Dobby understands! Dobby will take young Malfoy to Stumpy!" The elf declared, while Draco just looked at Harry in horror.
"You can't do this!" Draco declared.
"I just did." Harry replied calmly, before there was a final crack as Dobby vanished alongside Draco.
"I wouldn't want to be Draco right now." Sirius said while shaking his head.
"At least now we don't have to worry about him accidentally getting himself killed while we're busy." Harry replied, and the group resumed their work to clean the house.
They spent a few more hours working their way through various rooms, focusing solely on chasing the magical creatures out and scouring the place of dark artifacts. The actual cleaning however would be done by the house elves, who were practically vibrating with excitement at the idea when Harry told them.
Unfortunately, they were only able to clear a couple more of the many rooms that filled the home before they had to call it quits. Not only was it already lunch time, but Harry also had an appointment to keep in the afternoon.
The group Flooed back to Potter Manor to find a selection of light dishes waiting for them, courtesy of Sweets. The four of them quickly dug in right before Narcissa stormed up to Sirius, a livid look on her face.
"WHY, is my son shoveling dung from those filthy animal pens?!" She demanded angrily from her lord of house. Sirius however just looked at Harry, as the actual master of Potter Manor, and technically the oldest one present.
"Because, while we were cleaning Grimmauld Place, Draco decided to go off on his own and was nearly eaten by pixies. Despite us warning him not to do so. He then had an attitude about being expected to help, so I found something less dangerous for him to do." Harry explained while continuing to eat, before washing his food down with a long gulp of mead.
"My son is not your servant!" Narcissa snarled angrily at Harry.
"No, he isn't." Harry nodded in agreement. "But he is living under my roof, and must be expected to follow our rules. Not only that, but Draco himself has an inflated sense of entitlement and self worth, even despite the reality that you two are living off of mine and Sirius's charity." Harry pointed out, and Narcissa's face turned a brilliant shade of red. Presumably from both anger and shame at the truth of what he said.
"So the way I see it, there is no reason why Draco cannot do some chores to keep himself busy most days, especially if we can't trust him not to run off on his own in Grimmauld Place. And of course, I am willing to give him an allowance for completing his chores as well, so long as he actually does them." Harry told her with a tone of finality, earning him a look of disbelief from Narcissa.
The former lady Malfoy huffed as she turned on her heel and strutted from the room angrily, letting Harry and the others return to their midday meal in peace.
Once they were done eating, Harry made his way to the library with all of his new books that they had taken from Grimmauld Place, which he passed onto Goggles and Dobby to organize and shelve according to the system they already had in place. They were even making a booklet that listed each book in the library along with where they were shelved for easy location in the future.
After that it was time for Harry's appointment, his first session with Horace Slughorn.
"Harry, my boy! So good to see you again!" Horace declared as soon as he stepped through the fireplace.
"It's good to see you too, Horace." Harry replied as the two of them greeted each other like colleagues, instead of teacher and student. "If you're willing, I'll show you the greenhouse first." Harry said as he led the rotund man through his home. And of course, he didn't miss the gleam in Horace's eyes when he mentioned the greenhouse.
"Merlin's beard!" Horace swore the second they'd stepped into the humid room, which was filled with various plants the likes of which existed no where else in the world, aside from Hogwarts of course.
"Do you realize what kind of money you could make by selling these?" Horace asked Harry as he stepped into the greenhouse to examine the different plants they were growing. He appeared particularly drawn to the Gleamblossoms.
"I'm not exactly hurting for money. These are all being grown for my own personal use. Don't touch that." Harry said before chiding the older man, right before he could touch a certain bulbous plant.
"That's called a Poison Bloom. As you can surmise, they are extremely toxic and are usually used for various poisons. Aside from that though, when something disturbs them they open their petals and release a cloud of toxic spores to protect themselves." Harry explained while approaching that particular plant, which had Horace sweating as he described it.
He then explained what several of the foreign plants around the greenhouse were to Horace, namely what they were called and the various uses they had in Alchemy, before leading the man to his office. It was there that Harry was keeping his trunk/workshop during the summer holidays, specifically his Alchemy/Potions setup.
"This is even better than your greenhouse!" Horace exclaimed as they entered that particular room, which had several cauldrons of different sizes set up around Harry's primary Alchemy set, while the walls were covered with nearly every ingredient imaginable from both magical Britain and Skyrim. The former courtesy of the Greengrass family of course.
"I spent decades collecting and preserving as many ingredients as possible during my travels after I started learning Alchemy. Not to mention the greenhouses and gardens I planted across the province." Harry told him seriously, even as he approached the cauldrons to prepare them.
"Keep in mind though that the ingredients that we can't cultivate are limited, so we can't do too much experimentation with them." He added while pointing out the Skeever Tails, Daedra Hearts and Lunar Moth Wings.
"Of course..." Horace said absentmindedly as he examined everything Harry had, his mind racing with all of the possibilities the ingredients before him held.
"Before we start experimenting, are there any potions you would like to try?" He then asked Harry, as part of the reason for these classes was to help make sure Harry knew the difference in process between Alchemy and Potions.
"I do have an idea, actually." Harry said as he pulled a book off of one of the shelves, which held several of the more advanced potions recipes that could be brewed. Harry had already bookmarked one of the pages though, which made Horace cock a brow curiously.
"Veritaserum? Are you SURE you want to brew that?" Horace asked skeptically.
"Yes." Harry answered as he set about gathering the needed ingredients. "Considering the things I need to do, it will be quite handy in the future. Plus I need some before returning to Hogwarts, and it takes a whole lunar cycle to brew."
"My boy, what could you possibly need it for?"
"Questioning someone about a possible Horcrux." Harry immediately answered, and Horace's entire demeanor shifted.
"Then you'll need Adder's Fork, Sopophorous Beans, Ptolomy, Powdered Moonstone, and Jobberknoll Feathers..." Horace murmured as he pulled out his own collection of ingredients to help Harry brew the complicated potion.
...
"Haaa..." Harry sighed in contentment after taking a long draught of warmed honeyed mead, waiting for the response from Tom Riddle.
It had become his nightly ritual before bed, writing to the soul fragment as he poured his heart out along with the worst of living with his muggle relatives. For example, today Harry had to spend the entire day maintaining the flower beds, pricking his arms and hands numerous times on the thorns of the rose bushes, he had to dodge a cast iron frying pan from his aunt, suffered severe physical and verbal taunting about being a 'freak' from his cousin, and received death threats from his uncle for imagined slights. And on top of all of that, he only got a few scraps to eat for his only meal.
Harry didn't know what was worse, the fact that it wasn't too hard to come up with this stuff based on his actual experience before ending up on Tamriel, or the fact that Tom was eating it up and wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he was trying to poison him against all muggles and muggle-borns after just a few days. Ultimately, Harry decided he didn't care as long as it led him to the Chamber of Secrets.
Eventually ending the correspondence by stating that he could hear his uncle walking through the halls, Harry closed the diary and returned it to his desk drawer that was specially locked to prevent intrusion and theft.
Right as he was about to go to bed though, Harry heard something tapping against the window.
"Hm?" He hummed while looking up at it, only to see a large beetle sitting on the glass patiently.
"I wonder what she wants?" Harry muttered to himself as he made his way to the window to open it, not knowing what Rita wanted since he hadn't heard from her in several days.
"Lord Potter." Rita said after she zipped by him and took her human form, her voice dripping with mock fealty.
"Rita. Is there any more news?" Harry asked her as his mind immediately went to Peter, who they suspected to be in Africa.
"Unfortunately no, and Magnus hasn't heard anything either." Rita said while shaking her head, before pulling a thick stack of parchment from her robes. "I came to give you these, wanted posters for perspective members of the Thieves Guild."
Harry immediately became alert as he looked through the posters while scrutinizing each of them carefully.
Unfortunately, the majority of them appeared to be genuinely dark wizards or witches, dabbling in the dark arts or just straight up committing murder. And while Harry didn't have the same reservation towards the dark arts as Albus, he still regarded them warily as he read through their actual crimes.
"Not many here worth considering..." Harry muttered to himself, as he flipped through the pages, only noting a few names like Mundungus Fletcher, Ginger Maryland, and Mathias Andrews. But even then, none of them screamed 'master thief'.
"So what now? You can't have a Thieves Guild with only two members." Rita asked him curiously.
"Don't worry, we won't. Contact these three discreetly, and let them know I'm interested in meeting them without naming me. Or yourself." Harry ordered while passing her the three posters matching the aforementioned names. "We're also going to need a place to set up a headquarters, preferably underground somewhere."
"I'll start looking, but what are you going to do about other members?"
"Start small. I'll look for orphan muggles living on the streets, as well as recruits within Hogwarts once we go back in September." Harry told her after a moment's thought.
"Children? Muggles even?" Rita asked with disdain.
"Don't discount them." Harry immediately chided her. "No one in the wizarding world will look twice at a muggle, and I should be able to provide them gear and other items to give them an edge, even against wizards. Magic is not a necessity to become a thief."
"No..." Rita admitted while getting a faraway look in her eyes. And then she smiled.
"Interesting. I'll be going then." Rita declared before turning back into a beetle and flying out the still open window, leaving Harry alone as he glanced at the wanted posters still on his desk.
"Maybe I should try going back to bounty work?" He mused to himself as he flipped through them again.